


Unfinished Plans

by ebeatrice



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family Dynamics, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Road Trips, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29571969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebeatrice/pseuds/ebeatrice
Summary: Suddenly, she begins to understand why he has chosen to travel to Vormir by ship.Thanos, it seems, wants to talk. To catch up, as it were.As if this day could get any worse.aka - Gamora and Thanos' sad awkward road trip.
Relationships: Gamora & Nebula (Marvel), Gamora & Thanos (Marvel), Gamora/Peter Quill
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24





	Unfinished Plans

Though he possesses the space stone, Thanos insists on travelling by ship to Vormir. Gamora pilotes the two-person vessel he requisitions for their mission, falling back into old habits easily. Subservience may be a learned trait, but it is ingrained. Now that the mad titan holds Nebula’s life in his hands, Gamora is quick to remember all the little things she used to do in order to survive. Above all, please Thanos, anticipate his needs. If he wishes to travel by ship, pilot it.

However helpful these habits are for remaining alive, they are of little use to Gamora as she tries to understand why it is that they are travelling this way. Thanos, it seems, is in a hurry. After years of inaction, his great plan is a few stones away from fruition. Why draw this journey out? She knows better to ask, of course. Nor does she have any desire to start a conversation with the man who calls himself her father. Instead, she focuses on navigating the vastness of space.

In the silence of the ship, she begins to plan what she will do after they return from retrieving the soul stone. It is a fool’s plan, based on the illogical hope to there may yet be a way to thwart Thanos-with-four-stones when she and her friends were so easily defeated by Thanos-with-three, but it is the only way Gamora has come up with to fight off the despair that comes from potentially dooming half the universe.

First, she will rescue Nebula. Her sister will no doubt berate her for her weakness in sharing the location of the soul stone with Thanos.

 _I wasn’t worth it_ , Nebula will grumble.

Even now, Gamroa knows what she will say to that.

_You wanted us to be sisters, didn’t you?_

The route to Vormir is breathtaking. Stars and colourful debris shine against the darkness of space, distracting Gamora from her worries for a moment with their beauty. Thanos, too, is affected.

“I’m reminded of your childhood,” he says, “you so loved to look at the stars. You would sit at the window of my ship when I took you along on missions, and stare outside for hours.”

He doesn’t mention that the purpose of those childhood voyages was to teach her the cruelty of the world. She was a student of evil in those days, a child-scholar presented with both evidence that the universe was fundamentally unjust, and a solution to fix it. Thanos sought to convert her to his great vision, and never seemed to notice that the excitement she wore on her face when they set was only a misplaced hope that this time they would return to her home planet. _This time_ , he would let her go.

Gamora forgets how old she was when she finally gave up on that hope, but it can’t have been more than a year or two after her kidnapping. Nebula, she thinks, had only just arrived. It was on the return journey from these travels that Gamora would sit at the windows, and stare out at the beauty of the stars. It was here that she first learned to block out her renewed disappointment, her growing self-loathing.

“You would have never seen such wonders,” says Thanos, “without me.”

“I suppose,” she replies, uncertain. Perhaps without Thanos, she would have been bound to her home planet, a simple girl who never saw the galaxy. Perhaps not. She has now way of knowing what she would have seen without him.

\--

The first thing Gamora will do when they return to the Sanctuary is demand that Nebula be granted proper medical care. She will conspire for a moment alone with her and then they will make a run for it. She’s already pocketed the keys to this ship and she has a spare dagger to lend her sister. It won’t be an easy escape, but they’ve both fought their way out of tricker situations with less.

The journey to Vormir drags on in silence. Gamora longs for Peter’s music and the sound of him singing along to the songs he knows by heart. Instead, it is Thanos who ends their quiet.

“I heard stories of your exploits while you were gone from my side,” he says. “People say you defeated a celestial.”

The remark surprises Gamora so much that she turns to look at the mad titan for the first time since they set off. His expression is expectant. He seems almost eager to hear what she has to say. Suddenly, she begins to understand why he has chosen to travel to Vormir by ship.

Thanos, it seems, wants to talk. To catch up, as it were.

As if this day could get any worse.

“It was really more of a group effort,” she says.

She thinks back to their battle against Ego. Their plan was threadbare, held together by a pack of stolen batteries. Rocket was the one who came up with the idea of blowing the place up - Groot was the one set off the bomb. Peter did the brunt of the fighting. Gamora only offered support. Had she still been under Thano’s thumb, her performance would have been deemed a disappointment, a failure, even. As his favorite, the expectation for success was high.

 _Being the favorite’s not all it’s cracked up to be_ , she’ll tell Nebula as they escape together.

 _Poor little favorite,_ her sister will snap.

“I gather your group’s services are in high demand,” says Thanos, his disdain audible. “what is it you call yourselves? The soldiers of the galaxy?”

“Guardians,” corrects Gamora, baited by his taunt.

“Ah, yes,” says Thanos, “the Guardians of the galaxy. You’ve made quite a name for yourselves. And yet, they posed no challenge to me.” He taps his gauntlet covered fingers against the arm of his chair as he speaks. “I expected better from your companions, daughter.” The infinity stones shimmer as he moves, their glow reflected in the glass of the ship’s window.

 _Daughter_. She’s always wondered what pushed him to declare himself a parent to the children he kidnapped and trained up as soldiers. He could have made them call him _master_ or _lord_ and little of value would have been lost. Thanos can be sentimental when he chooses. He speaks of her and Nebula and the others as though they are one family - as though, from the loneliness of the cosmos, he brought them together against all odds to share a bond.

Gamora knows a thing or two about finding family in strangers, and she’s come to learn that claiming kidnapped children as kin does make it so. There is more to family than the words _father_ and _daughter_. Sisterhood is messy and complicated. People who once wanted you dead will defend you to the very last. Family is complicated. Its nuances are lost to Thanos, a man who believes that the universe will be righted only once half of it has been exterminated. He sees the world too plainly to grasp the complexity of it all, the colour and texture that make it truly beautiful.

Fleetingly, Gamora feels pity for Thanos.

“I did not stay with them for their strength,” she says. 

For a moment, it feels like a betrayal to suggest that the Guardians lack fortitude. Their strength comes from their care, their love for one another. In that regard, they are infinitely stronger than Thanos. But then - that’s her point.

\--

Once they escape the Sanctuary, Gamora anticipates that she and her sister will quibble over what to do next. Nebula will want to go after Thanos, more motivated to kill him than ever. For Gamora, the next step is to track down the Guardians and regroup. It’s the same old fight really - for as long as she’s known Nebula, her sister has dreamed of killing their father. Meanwhile, she’s only ever wanted to escape him.

Her plan is to scare her sister off with tales of Thanos’ heighted power, now that he wields so many stones. She will tell her of the defeat on Knowhere if needs be. Nebula has never been especially good at listening to reason when she’s angry, but maybe this time she’ll see sense. Maybe they’re close enough now that she will hear what Gamora has to say without growing stubborn and defensive.

In the quiet after they’ve come to a conclusion (which, in Gamora’s imaginings, is hers), they’ll talk. She imagines telling her sister about this strange voyage to Vormir.

 _It was weird_ , she’ll say of Thanos, _he spent the whole time trying to reminisce about happy memories._

 _What happy memories?_ Nebula will retort.

Exactly.

Indeed, Thanos has attempted to discuss many things with her as they approach their destination: her training, her early successes on the battlefield, how his other generals - the ones he made her call siblings - lack her talents, her finesse. When she still served him, there would be moments like these between battles, when he would take her aside and talk of his plans, his observations. Proxima was growing haughty, the Asguardian was close to breaking. Gamora listenned; agreed. There were times when he would come to her for a dissenting opinion, usually as they planned an attack, but these were not those. Rather, these moments were a sort of leisure time for Thanos - casual gossip with his favorite daughter.

The dynamic is different now. The illusion of closeness that Gamora once fostered has been shattered by her years away. It isn’t simply that he can no longer trust her with his thoughts on the workings of his operation, it’s that he no longer knows her as he once did. Deep down, she doubts Thanos knows her at all - he certainly doesn’t understand her. But he did once know what she did in a day, who she spoke to, what battles she won. Now, he’s struggling to catch up. He has an especially keen interest in the people she’s left him for.

“Are your companions aware of your time with me?” he asks. He is taunting her with the misdeeds of her past, the long list of atrocities she committed in his name.

“They know,” she says, unbothered. “It’s a hard thing to keep under wraps when half the galaxy fears your name.”

She considers telling him about Drax, how when they first met, he meant to kill her to avenge his wife and daughter. _We’re friends now_ , she might say, _family_. She considers telling him about Groot the elder, who sacrificed himself so that they might all - Gamora included - survive during the battle of Xandar, all while knowing exactly who she was.

“And do they hate you for it?” asks Thanos.

Gamora lets out a laugh then. Perhaps it is a reckless thing to do, but she cannot suppress it. Behind her, she can feel the mad titan tense, his mood souring. Once, she might have panicked and apologized for her cheek, but she no longer owes him such deference.

“You met them, on Knowhere,” she says in between peetering bursts of laughter, “and you think - you think that I’m the one they hate?”

She decides she won’t tell him about Drax after all, or Groot, or any of them. She knows that her friends don’t hold her past against her, not anymore. It’s enough. Let Thanos wonder at how that happened. She owes him no explanation.

\--

They’re approaching Vormir now, soon they’ll be entering its atmosphere. Gamora is both eager and not to arrive. The sooner they land, the sooner she can begin preparing her escape in earnest. Thanos will lose interest in her once he has what he truly seeks - but what he seeks is the soul stone.

She can sense that Thanos is growing eager to arrive. He drums his fingers against his armrest, lets out a sigh of impatience. He is...less controlled that Gamora has known him to be. Perhaps it is the lack of an audience to pander to. It is only the two of them here, after all. Perhaps he feels he can let his own mask slip, just a bit. The thought unnerves her - or, more precisely, the implication does. Thanos relaxes around no one. If he is is growing comfortable with her now…

She can’t bring herself to finnish her train of thought.

She’s almost grateful when Thanos begins yet another round of awkward questioning.

“You’ve never had a boyfriend before.”

Her relief is short-lived. Gamora goes stiff. This cannot be happening.

“That you knew of,” she says tightly, trying to change the subject.

Thanos chuckles.

“Little One,” he says, “you can’t really believe I didn’t know about your dalliances.”

Where earlier Gamora felt as though she had the upper hand, she now feels flattened. It shouldn’t surprise her that her adolescent romantics, however few and fleeting they were, didn’t escape Thanos’ notice. Nothing did. And yet the illusion that he was ignorant of these liasons had been comfort. Now that it no longer holds, she feels vulnerable before him, exposed.

“I never found them all that interesting,” continues Thanos, “which is why I let you keep them. But this one -”

Gamora closes her eyes. For a fraction of a second, Thanos isn’t here. Instead, it’s Nebula. They’ve escaped and now they’re talking about this terrible trip.

 _He started asking about Peter,_ she says.

 _You can’t be serious_.

“This one intrigues me,” declares Thanos, shattering her escapist fantasy, “I’ll admit, I thought him too weak to pull the trigger.”

Suddenly, Gamora is breathless. She has not allowed herself to think too deeply about what happened with Peter on Knowhere once since they left. There has been too much else to fill her mind, too many other emotions to pick at. This wound is still fresh, still bleeding. There isn’t a scab to cover it and it’ll be some time yet before it forms.

“Please,” she begs, small and pitiful, “don’t.”

Logically, Peter was the only person who might have been able to do it - to kill her, that is. If Rocket had been travelling with them, he might have been a safer bet. He is the staunchest pragmatist of their group. Drax, she knew, wouldn’t think straight at the sight of Thanos. Mantis can’t kill anyone, not intentionally. So it was logical, then, to ask Peter to be the one to do it. 

Except nothing about her decision was logical. She asked Peter because she _loves_ Peter. If she was going to die, his was the face she wanted to see last. There would be some kindness, she thought, in knowing that her death, though an act of violence, was also an act of love. There would be some comfort, in knowing he was there.

“I’m merely curious,” says Thanos, ignoring her pleas, “can’t I wonder what it is about this one in particular that captures your interest?”

Again, Gamora pretends that Nebula is there instead of him. They are snacking on yargnuts and laughing and the _Bennetar_ is in sight.

 _He wanted to know what I see in him,_ she says.

Nebula reflects. _I don’t get the attraction either._ She ducks, avoiding a yargnut Gamora has turned into a projectile.

“Well?” presses Thanos.

"He’s everything you’re not," seethes Gamora. 

She remebers what they both have taught her: Thanos trained her in combat, torture and death - Peter showed her how to dance. Images of him dancing, alone, with her, to save the universie, flash before her, soothing her slightly, strengthening her resolve to find her way back to him when this is all over.

A green light flashes on the control panel.

“We’re here,” says Gamora, turning her attention to finally landing their craft on Vormir.

\--

\--

When you get to the bottom of it all, Gamora’s plans for the immediate future are simple: rescue Nebula, reunite with the Guardians. From there, she will make more plans. Plans for defeating Thanos and saving the universe, plans for life after that. There will be small things to plan, like restocking supplies and maintaining the ship that she calls her home. There will be bigger things too - a new Guardians’ mission, plans for her and Peter and plans she can’t yet fathom. Plans upon plans. Plans that will never come to be.

\--

\--

Thanos sheds tears as he grips her arm, but that doesn’t stop him from throwing her off a cliff.

Gamora’s last thoughts are scattered, overwhelmed by the freefall.

She thinks, _Nebula will have to stop complaining about not being the favorite now._

She thinks, _I always knew he would kill me._

She thinks, _Love, he calls this love._

She thinks, _Peter._

The last thing she thinks of, as her body crashes against the rocks, her bones cracking beyond repair, is that she will never be able to put her plan to escape with Nebula into action. It will remain forever unfinished.


End file.
